Bihar: 78 Doctors Have Died of COVID-19 During Second Wave

Patna: Bihar has recorded the highest casualty of doctors due to the coronavirus among the Indian states reeling under the devastating second wave of the pandemic.

As many as 78 doctors – senior physicians, surgeons, resident and junior doctors and the retired ones – in Bihar have fallen prey to COVID-19, according to the list issued by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).

Earlier this week, a leading cardiologist of Bihar, Dr Prabhat Kumar, who was recently airlifted to Hyderabad for treatment of COVID-19 related complications, breathed his last at a hospital in Patna.

Uttar Pradesh recorded the second highest number of doctors – 37 – who died due to COVID-19 in the second wave of the pandemic, followed by Delhi which lost 28 of its medical practitioners, according to the IMA’s list.

As deaths are soaring, several questions are being raised over the handling of the disastrous situation.

First, why have Bihar and Uttar Pradesh which fared better than the other rich states like Maharashtra and Delhi last year have recorded the highest casualty of doctors in the second wave?

Second, has the Bihar government maintained the list of how many doctors died in the line of duty and how many got infected off duty?

Third, did they have proper protection kits while examining the patients?

Out of the 78 doctors who succumbed to COVID-19 in the state, only one doctor’s kin has received Rs 50 lakh as compensation announced last year by the Modi government for the frontline workers who lose their life in the line of duty. However, there is no one to answer why the rest of the 77 doctors' families haven't benefitted from the Centre's health insurance scheme.

Also read: Rural Bihar in the Grip of COVID-19 – but Official Data Belies Ground Reality

What do the doctors say

One of the most senior Patna-based doctors and former president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Dr Ajay Kumar, said, “The problem in Bihar is the unmanageable and uncontrolled rush of the patients in the doctors’ chamber. Even if the doctors stay in proper protective gears, they receive patients who rush to their chambers, breathing down their neck. The doctors have fallen prey to COVID-19 in other states too, but the poor medical infrastructure and woefully poor doctor-patient ratio have added more to the load on the doctors in Bihar.”

“Besides, little attention had been given to the ventilation in the doctors’ chambers in medical colleges and district-level hospitals across the state in the past. Ventilation is cardinal to dissipate the impact and spread of the COVID-19 virus which the Bihar hospitals are lacking,” Dr Ajay Kumar, who is also a member of the National Board of Examinations of Medical Sciences, said.

Dr Shakeel, consultant physician of Polyclinic – a non-profit medical facility – and convenor of Jan Swasth Abhiyan (Public Health Campaign) in Bihar, however, said, “It’s very hard to give a concrete opinion about the exceptionally high number of death of doctors in Bihar. The government must carry out a study/probe on how many doctors have died in the line of duty and how many have succumbed to the virus off duty. Lack of protective kits, unreasonable duty hours and escalated load of patients appear to be the reason for high casualty of doctors in Bihar.”

Dr Shakeel – who treats 50 to 60 COVID-19 patients per day – pointed out, “Bihar is a typical case of excessive load of patients and unreasonable duty hours. For instance, the doctors treating the COVID-19 patients are supposed to be covered in protective gear. Practically, they shouldn’t be made to work for more than four hours in protective kits that cover them from head to toe. But they stay on duty looking after the patients for eight hours, and in many cases, they don’t go off duty even after eight hours for they don’t get relievers in the absence of an adequate number of doctors.”

“But what I am saying are based on anecdotal accounts. The high casualty rate of doctors is very much linked to the extremely poor health infrastructure in Bihar. A scientific and evidence-based study can only bring to the fore the reason for the highest casualty of doctors in the state.”

Noted ophthalmologist and president of the medical cell of the ruling Janata Dal (United), Dr Sunil Kumar, however, had a different perspective. “The doctors in Bihar have been more proactive investing themselves fully in the service of the patients. They have put everything on the line to provide succour to the suffering patients and save the state from the enormity of the second wave of the COVID-19 that has played bigger havoc in many other states.”

Several doctors posted in the medical colleges and the government hospitals the The Wire spoke with were wary of getting quoted. But most of them complained about the government not taking proper care of protective kits and duty hours for them.

Also read: As Second COVID Wave Breaks the Bihar Paradox, What Should the State Do?

Yogi Adityanath versus Nitish Kumar

Despite high casualty of doctors, the Bihar doctors were by and large unanimous in assessing that chief minister Nitish Kumar was far better than his counterpart in the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, in terms of employing rationality in the face of the pandemic.

“The chief minister [Nitish] has not brazenly encouraged throwing of the bodies to float in the rivers unlike in Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, Nitish has not asked the health professionals to tie pulse oximeters in the cows’ necks on the convoluted belief that the cows release more oxygen. The resources in the state are limited but the Bihar chief minister monitors the situation and does the things in a scientific manner,” a senior doctor of the Patna Medical College Hospital said on condition of anonymity.

Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author and professor of journalism and mass communications at Invertis University, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. 

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